" .....in "Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail", author Christopher Dawes [aka. Push] was clearly thinking more of - Monty Python and an unholy mix of Umberto Eco, Dan Brown and Indiana Jones - than of his own real-life quest for "loft convertions and/err!, finding the Holy Grail."
"ARrrumpa Pom Pomb ! - Rrrumpa Pom Pomb ! - Rrrumpa Pom Pomb ! "
In his book, 'Push' Dawes finds himself, drawn into the mystery surrounding a tiny hilltop village in southern France. A mystery involving the long dead, altruistic, high-living, enigmatic Abbé Bérenger Saunière, who supposedly found ancient coded parchments hidden in a pillar inside his village church. - Did Saunière perhaps, decode those documents and locate the fabled "The Holy Grail"?
"ARrrumpa Pom Pomb ! - Rrrumpa Pom Pomb ! - Rrrumpa Pom Pomb ! "
As 'Push' Dawes tries to make sense for us, of such things as - 'Ghostly Silver Horses' and 'Glowing Blue Apples', he also introduces us to characters like:
- Tony the Templar, the pony-tailed restauranteur of the Pomme Bleue;
- Jennifer (Barbie-doll) Priestley, - La reine des fées.
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers
" 'Tis My Fairy! - The Lady of Shalott." - Henry Lincoln, an always barefoot scholar of Saunière's lore;
- Richard Bellia, an Anglophile French photographer often found at the wheel of a cheese van.
- And of course there's the guy who dragged Dawes into the quest in the first place:
Rat Scabies (aka Chris Millar - son of Jon Millar {The 666 Beast}), former drummer for The Damned one of the seminal British punk bands of the 1970s and, as it turns out, Dawes' infamous neighbor.
"ARrrumpa Pom Pomb ! Rrrumpa Pom Pomb ! "
is of course the real star of this story. He's an infectiously enthusiastic and sometimes surprisingly erudite Crackpot who'd sell Dawes anything, including his own back porch, and has plans to get rich from a variety of wild, madcap schemes. For Dawes, who traces his career in music, from the first time he ever heard The Damned, Rat-(ty) was his Idol, and in the course of their adventure to find, 'the sacred chalice of eternal life, unending riches, and whatnot,' the two of them became the closest of friends.
"ARrrumpa Pom Pomb ! Rrrumpa Pom Pomb ! "
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